


Trust the Force

by xerxwrites



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: A Star Wars AU where the Party from Stranger Things saves the galaxy, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerxwrites/pseuds/xerxwrites
Summary: A Star Wars AU set post-sequel trilogy where El is a Jedi in training, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will are bounty hunters, and Nancy is a captain in the Republic Navy. They'll reunite, separate, form friendships, meet some galactic heroes and save the galaxy!





	1. Chapter 1

Eleven glances out the starship window to see the planet they’re about to land on, she wasn’t quite used to the cold vastness that was space travel, this being her first time since starting her Jedi training that she’s left a planet. She tries to calm herself by remembering Master Rey’s teachings, be mindful of your emotions but don’t let them control you.

  
“I have a bad feeling about this mission Master Harrington” Eleven says nervously.

  
“Breath kid, remember your training, and we’ll be fine. You have to remember to trust the Force.” her master replies.

  
Steve Harrington was part of the first class of Jedi to be taught by Rey after the fall of the old First Order.

  
A woman the same age as her master comes out of the ship’s main corridor “We’re nearing the planet now, and your shuttle is prepped and ready”.  
“Thank you, captain Wheeler” Steve replies.

  
“You know I think it’s weird when you call me captain, we’ve known each other for years Steve Harrington. Anyway, I wish I could be of more help to you but I’m supposed to rendezvous with the fleet at Felucia.” the captain explains.

  
“Sorry Nancy. I’m sure we’ll be fine. It’s probably nothing, the reports from Republic intelligence aren’t the most reliable, especially for a fallen Jedi with her skills.” Steve tries to reassure her.

  
“When was the last time you even saw her in person?” Nancy asks.

  
“Probably when we were both promoted to the rank of Jedi Knight” Steve replies.

  
Eleven remembers her well, she had been her old master before the Jedi Order found out that she had been studying the dark side and teaching her it’s ways. Teaching her to drew her power from her anger and aggression. When Rey and the rest of the Order found out, they tried to confront her but she had disappeared. Eleven wasn’t sure what to think at that time, she felt betrayed and abandoned but then again she was her master, she taught her how to use her power in the Force.

  
Eleven tries to focus on their mission as she, her master and Nancy were walking to the hangar where their shuttle was waiting. She admired Nancy’s confidence and could only hope to one day have the same level of confidence in her abilities.

  
“Have you heard from your brother?” Steve asks.

  
“No, last time I checked he was still working as a bounty hunter in the Outer Rim with those friends of his. But with the war ramping up, I haven’t had the chance to follow up on any leads” Nancy answers.

  
“Hey, I’m sure he’s okay. Your brother always seemed like he knew how to take care of himself” Steve tries to reassure her.

  
“Yeah, I guess” Nancy hesitantly responds.

  
As they reach the hangar, Eleven looks in amazement at the sight of all the different fighters and the flurry of activity around her. She can’t help but look in amazement at the sight of their shuttle, an old but imposing First Order shuttle captured from the days of the First Order-Resistance War.  
Before boarding the shuttle, Nancy gives both Steve and Eleven a hug. She can tell Eleven’s not quite used to physical affection, she gives off a hesitant awkwardness.

  
“May the Force be with you” she says with a smile.

  
“And with you” Steve replies with a smile back.

  
Steve pilots the shuttle into the planet’s atmosphere. It was a desert planet, but they were heading to a region where it would be a bit more lush. As they got closer to the surface, rain started to appear on the windscreen.

  
“Damn it, just our luck that we’re going to an arid planet during the rainy season” Steve grumbles.

  
The rain storm makes for a rougher arrival than either of them had anticipated but eventually they arrive at their destination: an old Imperial base. Steve manages to make a smooth landing right outside and deploys the ramp.

  
As they are about to leave the shuttle, Steve turns to her and says “Hey kid, I that I’ve only been teaching you for just under a year, but I just wanted to say that I think you’re ready for this. I know that she’s your old master and all but I know that you can face her. You don’t have to be worried about facing Kali okay?”

  
Eleven silently nods her head. She wants to believe that she’s ready but can’t help but doubt herself. She slides the hood from her cloak over her head as she leaves the shuttle. It’s pouring rain. Besides the moonlight, the only light around are the dim lights of the base.

  
“Smugglers sometimes like to use these old bases so we should be alert in case we have unexpected company.” Steve tells his nervous apprentice.

  
As they enter the main building at the centre of the base they feel a dark presence around them.

  
“Master, I feel something, something dark and cold” Eleven speaks with worry in her voice.

  
“I feel it too, you stay at the entrance. I’ll go and try to find this presence that we sense.” Harrington tells Eleven, before igniting the blade of his lightsaber.  
Steve leaves his young apprentice to watch over the entrance as he walks down a corridor and then down some steps into a large cavernous warehouse. as he walks past some crates he sees a dark figure, a familiar figure.

  
“Steve Harrington, still have that same haircut I see.” the figure says tauntingly.

  
“Kali, I know it’s you. I don’t want to fight you if I don’t have to. The Jedi can help you Kali, if Luke Skywalker could redeem Darth Vader then maybe Rey could bring you back to see the light.” Steve tells Kali.

  
“You’re foolish Harrington. Rey has done nothing to stop the First Order from coming back, and with Supreme Leader Brenner they are stronger than ever!” Kali screams.

  
“Falling to the dark side, isn’t going to help anybody Kali” Steve pleads to her.

  
“Rey kept me from my full power, but now that I’ve embraced who I am, not that I have seen the full extent of my abilities, I can destroy the First Order! I can bring peace and justice to the galaxy!” Kali loudly proclaims.

  
“The dark side is clouding your judgement Kali” Steve calmly explains to her.

  
“Well, if you’re going to stop me then you’ll have to kill me.” Kali states, before igniting her red lightsaber and lunging at Steve.

  
Steve dodges her blow and then tries to thrust his lightsaber towards her but just misses her. Kali tauntingly stares at him as she retreats from Steve’s attacks. Steve then Force jumps over her, and stabs her through the chest. Thinking he’s done, Steve deactivates his lightsaber before noticing that Kali’s body isn’t slumping to the ground.

  
Kali turns around, smiling before vanishing into nothingness. Steve should have known, Kali’s ability in Force projection were second only to master Rey’s even back when they were just starting their Jedi training.

  
Eleven was standing guard by the entrance, her lightsaber ready if the need arose. She could still sense a familiar but dark presence around her. As she looked at the door where her master entered waiting for him to return, she sensed danger.

  
The door from which she was expecting her master opened and out came a tall shadowy figure. This man was a bit taller and had white hair and then a realization dawned on her.

  
“Hello Eleven” the figure says.

  
Fear ran through Eleven’s body. This shouldn’t be possible she thinks, the Republic heavily monitors the whereabouts of Supreme Leader Brenner. If he were here on Cantonica, they would know, she would know. This can’t be real, this can’t be real! she thinks to herself.

  
Eleven sees him calmly walking towards her. "You have a wound Eleven, a terrible wound. And it’s festering. Do you remember Festering? It means a rot. And it will grow. Spread. And eventually, it will kill you.” he declares to Eleven by now an arms length away from her and towering over her.

  
“Stop it!” Eleven yells before slashing her lightsaber across Brenner’s body. She opens her eyes and notices an illusion fading, the black robes fading into brown, the white brown turning younger and then she makes a horrifying realisation as Brenner’s features gave way to the familiar sight of her master.

  
“Eleven” Steve says with struggling breath.

  
“Master, I’m so sorry” Eleven pleads, tears starting to run down her face.

  
“It’s too late for me Eleven. But you have to leave, this whole thing is a trap” Steve tell her, his voice struggling to be audible. Eleven’s on her knees, holding her masters hand as she tries to find the words so she can beg for his forgiveness.

  
“Where will I go? Who’s going finish my training?” Eleven asks, herself struggling to be heard as she summons the energy to talk to her master, the master that she has slain.

  
Steve gives a weak simile as he reaches down her wrist to reveal a bracelet with a Kyber crystal attached; a bracelet that was given to her by the Republic soldier who first found her during the raid on the First Order Installation where she was raised. With dying breath as he is holding the crystal, Steve tells Eleven “Trust the Force” before closing his eyes and Eleven seeing his body vanish before her.

  
Eleven looked up to see First Order Stormtroopers in the distance through the windows and then hear a loud boom followed by a fireball, where their shuttle was. Knowing she was in immediate danger, Eleven did the only thing she could think of and ran through the building, escaping the base through the back. She kept running, going through a field of tall grass, the sound of the wind and rain hopefully covering her tracks.

  
She was certain she was clear from danger when suddenly she came across three lights shining at her, lights mounted on top of blasters by three figures in rain cloaks. Lacking the distinctive white armour, she knew they weren’t Stormtroopers. Frozen from fear and exhaustion, she watched as the three figures approached her, their facial features becoming more apparent. She saw that they were couldn’t be much older than her, with a decent chance that they were the same age. The boy to her left was much darker-skinned than the others, white the boy to her left was noticeably missing some of his front teeth. Most of her attention though was on the boy in the middle, a dark-haired boy with freckles staring intensely back at her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Think "The Weirdo on Maple Street" if it happened on the Millenium Falcon.

Eleven found herself sitting in the brightly coloured crew compartment of a starship, the three boys standing over her staring at her. The boys now, out of their rain cloaks were all sporting some sort of armour; not the harsh white armour of a stormtrooper but more subdued earth tones. The boys were all busy discussing amongst each other the nature of their guest as Eleven tries to breathe and calm herself.

  
The dark skinned boy asks: “Did you run away?”

  
The freckled boy follows: “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  
The dark skinned boy follows up as his hand reaches towards you “Is that blood?”

  
The freckled boy slaps his hand away, “Stop it! You’re freaking her out!”

  
The dark skinned boy snaps back, “She’s freaking me out!”

  
The boy with the missing teeth says “I bet she’s deaf” and proceeds to clap his hands close to Eleven’s face; Eleven winces and jumps a little “okay, she’s not deaf” he declares to the other boys.

  
“All right, that’s enough, all right? She’s just scared and cold.” the freckled boy declares to his friends.

  
The boy proceeds to give Eleven some warm clothes. She immediately takes well to this gesture and rubs her face against the warm soft fabric.

  
“Here, I’ll show take you to the crew quarters, there’s a bathroom in there for privacy” he explains patiently.

  
He leads Eleven to the crew quarters where several bunk beds are located, off in the corner there’s a small bathroom with shower and toilet. As the boy is about to close the door, Eleven stops him and says “no”.

  
“Oh, so you do speak. Okay then, how about we just leave the door like this?” he says leaving the door slightly ajar.

  
Eleven nods in agreement: “yes”.

  
The boy smiles and walks away.

  
The boy returns to his friends int he main hold, all eager to discuss their new guest.

  
“This is mental” the boy with the missing teeth declares.

  
“At least she can talk” the freckled boy responds.

  
“She says yes and no, I’ve think I’ve heard Tuantuans who can speak more. There’s something wrong with her. I bet she escaped from Penhux” the dark skinned boy replies.

  
“From where?” the freckled boy responds with confusion and disbelief.

  
“The insane asylum, on Kessel” the dark skinned boy explains.

  
“I bet you have a lot of family there” the boy with the missing teeth jokes.

  
“Bite me” the dark skinned boy retorts “point is, she’s an escapee. We should have never brought her here!”

  
“So you just wanted to leave her out in that storm?” the freckled boy asks.

  
“Yes! We went out there to find and break out Will, not another problem” the other boy answers.

  
The freckled boy stands in silence, the expression on his face betraying his sense of disappointment.

  
“Maybe we should just drop her off at the nearest spaceport” the boy with the missing teeth says.

  
“What! Who’s crazy now?” the freckled boy responds.

  
“How’s that crazy?” the dark skinned boy replies.

  
“Because we’re fugitives, remember? The police are gonna have holograms of us broadcasted on every public holoprojector on this planet!”

  
“And then we’d probably end up in the same prison as Will” the dark skinned boy admits.

  
“Look, here’s the plan. She stays here tonight on the ship, she can sleep in the main hold. And tomorrow I’ll walk her to the edge of Canto Bight and she can find her way back to Penhux or wherever she came from” the freckled boy explains.

  
As the dark skinned boy and the boy who was missing teeth were making their way to the crew quarters, they briefly turned back to see their friend handing a sleeping bag and some bedding to the strange girl they had picked up.

  
“I know one thing, I wouldn’t want her sleeping with us” the dark skinned boy says as her was closing the door to their crew quarters.

  
Kneeling down as he gives her the sleeping bag and bedding, the freckled boy looked around her to make sure she was comfortable. He knew if Will were here, he’d do his best to make sure their guest felt safe and welcome and he was no different. Using some crates and sheets, he had managed to create a blanket fort with a sheet that could be draped over for privacy.

  
“Hey, I never asked you your name” the freckled boy asks.

  
Eleven rolls up the sleeve of the jumper than the boy had just given him. Pointing to the tattoo that said ‘011’ on it.

  
“That's your name?” he asks.

  
Eleven nods to confirm.

  
“Eleven? Okay. Well, my name’s Mike. Short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El. Short for Eleven” Mike explains to Eleven.

  
Eleven nods understandingly.

  
“Okay, well. Night El” Mike tells El as he gets up and leaves for his bed.

  
“Night Mike” El responds in kind.

  
Eleven tries her hardest to sleep as thunder roars outside the ship. She desperately tries to suppress the memories of her traumatic night.  
The next day, El overhears the boys talking about their plans for the day.

  
“Okay, good luck guys. Let me know if you find where they are keeping Will okay?” Mike asks of his friends.

  
“We will. Are you sure you’re going to be okay walking her back to Canto Bight?” the boy with the missing teeth asks.

  
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, there’s a forest we can walk through before we get to the edge of the city. We’ll be unnoticed there.” Mike explains.

  
“An artificial forest on a desert planet, man the people on this planet are rich” the boy with the missing teeth says in amazement.

  
“Well, it was your idea to bring her with us, so she’s your problem” the dark skinned boy states.

  
“Look, I’ll deal with this okay? You guys just keep trying to find Will” Mike retorts.

  
“Well, good luck” the other two boys say in unison as they leave the ship.

  
“Yeah, good luck to you guys too” Mike replies.

  
Mike turns and heads towards El’s makeshift sleeping quarters, bringing with him some breakfast foods for El in case she was hungry. He proceeded to slide open the the sheet covering El and knelt down beside her with the food. Eleven eagerly reached for the food and began devouring it.

  
“Okay, so here’s the plan. We’re going to go out for a walk and I’ll take you to the edge of the Canto Bight; that’s the closest city here. Then you can check in with the local police and you can find your way back home or whatever” Mike eagerly explains.

  
El stares back at him and utters a single word “no”.

  
Mike is taken back at this “No?” he repeats.

  
“No” she replies.

  
Still confused at her response, Mike tries to clarify “No, you don’t want the police to help you?”

  
She looks back at him, shaking her head.

  
The realization suddenly hits Mike “You’re in trouble aren’t you?”

  
Eleven’s lack of response is all the confirmation Mike needs.

  
“Who. Who are you in trouble with?” Mike tries to understand.

  
Eleven reaches underneath her still wet clothes to grab her lightsaber. She pulls it in front of her and unclenches her fingers to reveal the lightsaber in her hand.  
Mike stares for a bit in amazement. He goes to reach for it and mutters the words “Is that?” before El pulls the lightsaber from him before he could touch it.

  
Mike reaches back “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never seen a real Jedi before!” he says with a hint of wonder in his voice. Soon though, Mike starts to realise the full implications of this wonderful fact, El was mostly likely being hunted by the First Order. He couldn’t let the local police find her otherwise they’d turn her over.

  
“Okay, we won’t go anywhere. And you can stay with us until we can figure something out” Mike tells El.

  
“Hey, why don’t I show you around the ship?”

  
El nods and smiles.

  
Mike spends a decent amount of time showing Eleven every single detail of the ship. He explains to her that the brightly coloured interior was Will’s idea, and Will often took to calling it the rainbow ship because of it’s colourful interior. He then goes on to show her their holographic dejarik set, the cargo hold that doubles as prison cells for any bounties that they catch, their hyperdrive system (Mike boasts about it being the second fastest in the galaxy with only the Millennium Falcon being faster), Mike’s bunk bed, some holos of Mike’s family when he was younger, before showing her the cockpit of their ship. Above the centre control console,  a holo was playing showing Mike and his friends being awarded some medals.

  
“Oh that was from the ceremony on Coruscant in honour of the time when me and my friends captured a First Order war criminal off the streets of Mos Eisley on Tattooine. You see, me and my friends are bounty hunters.” Mike explains.

  
Eleven notices a boy in the holo that she hadn’t seen before. Something suddenly felt different, as if there was a disturbance in the force. Suddenly, Eleven began to see brief glimpses of visions of the boy, him alone in what looked like a prison cell. Eleven started to point the boy on the holo.

  
“That’s Will. Did you see Will last night? In the field?” Mike asks.

  
“No, it’s like I get visions of him. I think the Force is trying to tell me where he is” Eleven explains.

  
“The Force?” Mike says with some confusion. He had heard stories as child about the Force, the Jedi, the Sith, Rey, Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader before, but was never sure if he believed in any of it.

  
El just nods to confirm what she said.

  
Mike realizes that El has no reason to lie to him and that perhaps all those stories he heard about the Jedi and the Force were true after all. He’s seen some strange things in his travels across the galaxy, perhaps it was time he put his trust in this Force if it meant that it could help find his friend.

  
They decide to spend the rest of the day, relaxing and having fun. Mike figured El could use a break from being hunted by the First Order and grilled by his friends on the nature of her predicament. Mike first tries to teach her how to play dejarik, explaining to her all of the holographic games moves and how he and his friends would spend ages playing the game.

  
“If you want to play it, just make sure you save it first because Lucas and Dustin get super annoyed if anyone tries to mess with their game” Mike explains.

  
Eleven and Mike try to play for a bit, but it’s clear that for Eleven the game doesn’t come quite as naturally to her as it does to him. After a while, Mike decides to show her the ship’s holoprojector. After scanning through the holonet for a show that they’d like, the two eventually find a soap opera that Eleven seems taken in by. While Eleven is engrossed by the show, Mike is more interested in Eleven’s reactions as the show as she starts repeating the words the characters say. This might be the happiest that he has seen Eleven since they’ve met.

  
Time passes by quickly for both of them, and before long Lucas and Dustin return to the ship. They both notice El immediately as the walk up the ramp on to their their ship.

  
“What’s she doing here? I thought we decided that you’d take her to Canto Bight.” Dustin asks.

  
“Guys, El’s a Jedi!” Mike explains to his friends.

  
“Woah”, Dustin responds as both are taken aback at this revelation.

  
“So you see? We can’t just leave her or the First Order will either want to kill or capture her” Mike tells his friends.

  
Dustin and Lucas accept Mike’s reasoning, they knew that they couldn’t in good conscience let a Jedi fall into the hands of the First Order. Having a Jedi amongst them still doesn’t solve their Will problem though.

  
“Okay, we get that we can’t exactly just leave her here but now we have two problems: we still have to find Will and break him out of whatever prison he’s in and we have to find a way to get her back to the Republic” Lucas explains.

  
Lucas activates their ship’s holoprojector, displaying a map of the area surrounding Canto Bight. He explains to Mike that he and Dustin have searched a good portion of the area around the casino city but have found no sights of the hidden prison where their friend is being held. While Mike and Lucas are busy discussing search strategies, Dustin notices out of the corner of his eye El now has her eyes closed looking as if she’s focusing on something.

  
“Guys” Dustin says to his friends to draw their attention but to no avail, “guys!” he yells a second time.

  
Lucas and Mike both turn their attention as Dustin points out that Eleven seems to be in a trance-like state, deeply focused on something. They all slowly approach her as she seems to be focusing on something.

  
“Will” Eleven says softly, the attention of the boys now entirely focused on her.

  
“Did you see Will? Do you know where he is?” asks Mike.

  
Eleven nods her head before proceeding to walk towards the holographic map. She points towards a cliff edge by sea on which Canto Bight is located.

  
“They must have built the prison using the cave system” Dustin posits.

  
“Do you think you could map out these caves?” Mike asks.

  
“I’ll send out some probe droids there tonight, we should have the location of the prison pinpointed and the caves mapped by the morning” Dustin replies.

  
“Alright, tomorrow we’re breaking out Will” Mike proclaims to his small audience.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Party break Will out of a prison on Canto Bight.

The next morning the boys and Eleven are standing over the holographic map detailing the prison site. Dustin explains to the party, the information he’s gathered.  
“Alright, so based on the information I’ve received from our probes, there are three ways into the prison complex. First, there’s the main hangar secretly hidden on the cliff face. Second, there’s the sewer pipe leading from the prison to the main sewer network in Canto Bight. However, the nearest entry point into the sewer system is in the heart of the city right next to the casinos.” Dustin explains.

  
“Well, that rules out that option. We’d never get past all those police patrols in the city!” Mike says in frustration.

  
“Yes, but luckily for us, there are two other ways to get in. They had to bring in big machinery to build this prison right? Well, that’s where the caves come in. When they built this thing they had to bring in machinery through two cave entrances; one on the edge of the desert, the other is at the base of the cliff just under the hangar.” Dustin continues to explain their situation.

  
“Okay, we know how to get into the prison but how are we supposed to know where to find him in this prison?” Lucas asks.

  
“El can find him. She can find him with her Force powers!” Mike explains to the other boys.

  
Eleven steps forward to address the other boys. “I can do it, I can find him,” she tells the other boys.

  
“Okay, so we know how to get into the prison, we know how to find Will once we get there. So, what’s the plan?” Lucas asks as he and Dustin turn their faces towards Mike, awaiting an answer from their leader.

  
Mike briefly contemplates before offering up his plan. “Okay, me and El will sneak in through the entrance by the cliff edge. Dustin, you’ll go in through the other entrance and distract them so that me and El can get in. Lucas, you’ll need to get the ship ready to go so that we can make a quick escape when we get Will” Mike tells his friends.

  
The other boys nod their heads in agreement when it comes to strategizing their trust in their leader was absolute.

  
The boys start their preparations for their mission. Lucas could be seen flipping switches in the cockpit as he was getting the ship ready. Dustin is busy prepping his speeder as he was about depart the ship and trek to the edge of the desert. Meanwhile, Mike is inspecting his blaster pistol and double checking his ammunition. Eleven is in deep meditation, now dressed in the same military fatigues as the boys with her lightsaber attached to “a belt given to her by Mike.

  
“You ready El?” Mike asks.

  
El gets out of her meditative state, and nods to indicate her readiness. She rises from her makeshift sleeping arrangement to meet Mike, ready to venture out for their mission.

  
“Hey, good luck out there okay?” Mike says to Dustin as the latter is about to depart.

  
“Good luck to you too” he nods back.

  
The trek to the cave entrance was rather uneventful. Eleven and Mike manage to make it deep into the caves undetected before stumbling across a patrol. They quickly hide behind a large boulder.

  
“We’re going to need a distraction” Mike whispers.

  
Thinking quickly, Eleven draws on the Force to pull a stalactite near them down to the ground.

  
“What was that?” one of the prison guards asks.

  
“Let’s check it” responds the other guard as they start walking past you.

  
Waiting for the timing to be just right, Mike goes for his blaster and stuns the two guards, then proceeds to drag the bodies behind the boulder. He instructs Eleven to put on one of the guard’s uniform, together they would use their newfound disguises to try to get closer to the prison.  
In their new police uniforms, the two soon reach the edge of a large cavern where they can see the entrance to the prison. Mike reaches for his communicator and tries to reach Dustin.

  
“Dustin, this is Mike, do you copy? Is the distraction ready?” Mike inquires.

  
“Yup, almost ready Mike, over” Dustin replies.

  
Seconds pass and the next thing that Mike and Eleven saw was a flash of light followed by a large gaping hole in the side of the prison wall. Pandemonium ensues, with prisoners trying to make their escape and prison guards trying to assess and control the situation. Amidst the chaos, Eleven and Mike slip their way into the prison.

  
They make their way up to a control room where they are greeted by a guard.

  
“You’re needed in B block, we can take it over from here” Mike tries to tell the guard.

  
“I wasn’t notified” the guard responds.

  
“Well, umm that’s because…” Mike hesitantly responses before knocking out the guard with the butt of his blaster.

  
The guard slumps onto the console of the station he was manning. Mike pushes him off before reaching for the console's controls.

  
“Just as I feared, it’s encrypted” Mike states “El, can you use your powers to locate Will?”

  
Eleven closes her eyes and focuses her mind on Will. She motions for Mike to follow her. Following her lead, Mike travels down a long corridor past many prison cells before finally coming to a stop. The figure inside the cell is lying down facing away from you.

  
“Will! It’s me, Mike! We came to rescue you!” Mike yells.

  
“Mike!” Will responds with joy.

  
“How do we get you out of that cell?” Mike asks.

  
“Oh don’t worry about that” Will answers as he takes out a card and slides it into the cell’s door locking mechanism.

  
“You could get out of your cell the whole time?” Mike asks with some confusion.

  
“Getting out of the cell was the easy part. It’s getting out of the prison with hundreds of armed guards that’s tricky” he responds.

  
Mike just smiles back at his response. He quickly looks to Will and then to Eleven.

  
“Will, this is Eleven. She’s the one who helped us find your location” Mike explains.

  
Will smiles and reaches out his hand. Eleven takes his hand and they shake.

  
“You know, I could have sworn I’ve met you before. You seem so familiar.” Will tells Eleven.

  
“Look we have to get out of here soon, soon the guards will have the prison under control and they’re going to be on high alert for anyone trying to leave,” Mike tells Eleven and Will.

  
They run back to the control room. Mike asks Will if he could gain control of the prison’s surveillance system, Will says he can and promptly begins to hack the surveillance system. Going through the surveillance system Will starts looking for their escape route.

  
“Okay, so looks like there is an escape hatch going up to the surface in the basement, if we can get to the escape hatch then we can leave without them monitoring our escape” Will explains.

  
“Okay, Will put on these handcuffs. El and I we’ll pretend we’re escorting you down to the basement” Mike says as he puts on a set of handcuffs over Will.

  
Will leads the way with Eleven and Mike closely following. Their plan works and they are able to successfully enter the basement level. As they turn a corner and see the escape hatch, they also come across the unfortunate sight of a group of guards blocking their way.

  
“You there! What are you doing with that prisoner? You know prisoners aren’t allowed on this level” one of the guards shouts.

  
“Uh-oh, we need to turn back,” Mike tells Will and Eleven.

  
“I think we have a possible prison break,” says one of the guards.

  
The guards began advancing on the trio, the three hide behind a corner. To their rear, they notice a pair of guards with their weapons drawn advancing towards them.

  
“You there, hands in the air!” shouts a guard.

  
Without hesitation, Mike fires his blaster at the advancing guards. The guards begin firing at their position, Mike then quickly unlocks Will’s restraints and hands him a blaster out of one of his holsters. The ensuing firefight is fierce and intense as Mike quickly tries to scan their location for an escape. Is it then that Mike sees their escape route; next to them is a large sewer grate. He fires his blaster at it, leaving a smouldering hole where the grate was.

  
“Quick, in here!” Mike directs to the group.

  
Eleven quickly hopes into the hole, followed by Will. Mike continues engaging the guards in a firefight for a bit before throwing a thermal detonator into a group of guards and detonating it before he too jumps into the sewer to join Eleven and Will into the sewer. Mike quickly pulls out a holographic map and after checking that they were in the right direction, the three quickly run away. Mike tries to reach Lucas or Dustin on his communicator but the signal is non-existent in the sewer tunnel.

  
After what seems like hours in the sewer system, the group finally comes to an opening. Mike climbs up the opening, lifts the manhole cover to check for danger before pushing it away. He climbs into an alleyway and then signals to the others that it is safe to join him. Will and Eleven quickly climb up the sewer, relieved that they won’t have to relive the smells they’ve encountered in there for a while.

  
Mike reaches for his communicator, “Lucas, do you copy?” he asks.

  
“This is Lucas, copy. Where are you guys? Did you get Will? We couldn’t reach you for hours!” Lucas responds.

  
“Change of plans, we’re in Canto Bight. Will’s with us and safe. Over” Mike replies.

  
“Okay, do you think you guys can get to the beach? I can fly the ship over there once you get close enough and then we can finally leave this damn planet.” Lucas explains.

  
Mike checks his holographic map of Canto Bight, “yeah, we should be able to make it there".

  
“Okay, see you there. Over.” Lucas replies.

  
“Yeah, over,” Mike says, finishing the conversation.

  
The city is teeming with wealthy casino-goers and tourists from across the galaxy. The trio could not stand out more if they wanted to, still dressed in police uniforms and reeking of sewage. Faced with no other options, however, the three try to blend into the crowd as they make their way towards the beach.  
It is not too soon then that they come across a police patrol; they could see the officers showing off holos of them. They walk past on the other side of the street when suddenly one of the civilians the police are questioning points at them.

  
“Oh shit!” exclaims Mike as he grabs Eleven’s hand and runs off with her, Will running close behind them.

  
The trio manages to turn a few corners through the streets of Canto Bight with the police in close pursuit. Mike manages to spot two parked speeder bikes across the street. Mike hops on one of the bikes, motioning for Will to take the other with Eleven getting on the back of Mike’s bike. Mike and Will quickly hot-wire their bikes before speeding away from the police. The two manage to dodge pedestrians and oncoming traffic as they move their way through the narrow city streets. Before too long though, they are being pursued by two police speeders behind them. The trio manages to keep ahead of their pursuers as they make their way to the seaside when all of a sudden another police speeder ahead of them turns a corner and heads towards them. The three of them all wonder how they will get out of their dire situation when El starts to hear a familiar voice.

  
“Use the Force El” the voice of Steve tells her.

  
El doesn’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

  
“El trust me,” the voice says.

  
El briefly closes her eyes to clear her mind before focusing intensely on the police speeder heading towards them. Suddenly, the police speeder is launched into the air above them and lands in front the police chasing them from the rear. All three of them briefly look back in disbelief and amazement at what just happened, with Will and Mike looking at each other to confirm what had just happened before their eyes.

  
“Eleven…” the voice continues.

  
“Steve” Eleven whispers, now realizing who she is talking to.

  
“You will go to Ahch-To, there you will learn from Rey and you will become a Jedi,” he says.

  
“Ahch-To” Eleven repeats to herself as she tries to process this information.

  
“Remember to trust the Force El. It will be with you. Always.” Steve tells her.

  
Eleven only had the briefest moment to process the fact that her old master was speaking to her from the Force before noticing they were on the beach with Mike’s approaching them lowering its boarding ramp. She could spot Lucas piloting the ship in the cockpit with Dustin on the boarding ramp.

  
“Come on! Hurry!” Dustin urges.

  
Mike and Will stop their bikes just steps away from the ship. The three of them hop off the bikes and run towards the ship. After they all enter, Dustin closes the ramp while Mike runs towards the cockpit.

  
“Punch it!” he yells.

  
Lucas moves the handle controller before pushing forward some levers. Soon, they heard the roar of the ship’s engines and before long the party had managed to evade the Canto Bight Police Department and were in the relative safety of space. Not too long after that, Lucas engages the hyperdrive, the stars of outer space becoming long streaks; the party off to another part of the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are enjoying what you are reading so far. Either way, leave your comments, thoughts, or criticisms, any feedback is extremely appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some set-up for the next chapter, a Wheeler sibling reunion, and a goodbye.

As the party all breathed sighs of relief while they were in the safety of hyperspace; Mike walked back from the cockpit to make sure if his crew and Eleven were okay. One one side of the main hold, he could see Dustin and Will hugging each other, with Dustin apologizing for partially being the reason that Will was jailed. At her makeshift sleeping quarters, Mike could see that El was in a meditative state, her mind in deep focus.

  
“El?” Mike inquires, worried if he was bothering her.

  
Eleven opens her eyes, looking back at Mike she utters “Ahch-To. Mike, I have to get to Ahch-To”.

  
“Ahch-To?” Mike asks.

  
“It’s where I can find Rey. It’s where I can finish my Jedi training” El clarifies.

  
“Okay,” Mike says in agreement “Do you know the coordinates for Ahch-To?” he asks.

  
Eleven shakes her head. The location of Ahch-To is a closely guarded secret and has been since the days of the Resistance. Only members of the Jedi Order and top officials of the Republic knew of its location and El as a Jedi apprentice was not privy to that information.

  
“Well, maybe once we drop you off at the closest Republic system, you can meet up with a Jedi or something and they can give the location of Ahch-To” Mike suggests.

  
The Republic, something about that word sparked a memory inside Eleven. The captain that Steve was talking to before they had left for their mission had mentioned that she was going to rendezvous with the Republic fleet at Felucia. Eleven suddenly knew where she had to go.

  
“Felucia, Mike I know where we have to go. I have to go to Felucia. We can meet up with the Republic fleet” Eleven tells Mike with confidence in her voice.

  
“Okay, El. We’ll get you to Felucia. I promise you that we’ll find some way to get you to Ahch-To” Mike tells El.

  
They simile at each other before Mike leaves to go back into the cockpit. As Mike walks away from Eleven, Will heads towards her.

  
“Hey, I’m Will. Dustin told me everything that happened, I just wanted to thank you for helping with my rescue and everything.” Will says with a warm simile on his face as he reaches out his hand towards El.

  
Eleven takes his hand and they shake. She then sees Lucas walking towards her, he kneels down to be on her level with a look of remorse on his face.

  
“Hey, everything I said about you being a problem and crazy and stuff. I was wrong. I’m sorry. You helped us rescue Will and I’ll always be grateful to you for that” Lucas tells her.

  
The two hug, their silent embrace being all that was needed to indicate to each other their gratitude and acceptance of each other. Mike returns from the cockpit after setting their course for Felucia, explaining to the group what El had told him and that she needed to make her way to Ahch-To. As they were making their way through hyperspace to Felucia, Dustin managed to find an old remote training droid so that El could practice her lightsaber skills. Everyone watched in amazement as El managed to deflect the blasts from the remote her eyes covered with a blindfold.

  
After what only seems to El like a short few moments, the ship comes out of light speed. The group all heads to the cockpit to see that in front of them is the Republic fleet. Right away they are hailed by one of the ships.

  
“Unidentified ship, this is captain Wheeler of the Ackbar. You are entering restricted space, please identify yourselves and your purpose.” the voice tells them.

  
“Nancy? This is Mike. We have a Jedi with us, she needs to get to Ahch-To” he replies.

  
“Mike?” Nancy briefly wonders out loud if she’s really talking to her brother.

  
“Yeah it’s me”.

  
“We’re sending you these coordinates. Please comply with these directions and we’ll meet you in the hangar” Nancy tells them, her voice once again sounding more authoritative.

  
The transmission ends and Mike inputs the coordinates into the ship’s navigational computer.

  
“Man, your sister sounds like a badass now” Dustin comments.

  
Mike just rolls his eyes at the comment. The ship is soon pulled into the hangar of the largest ship in the fleet, a giant bulbous ship of several kilometres in length. The hangar is full of activity as fighters come in and out on their patrols. The ship soon makes its landing and lowers its boarding ramp. Waiting for the party are Nancy Wheeler and Will’s brother Jonathan along with two Republic soldiers.

  
Immediately as soon as the Mike and Will make their appearance, Nancy and Jonathan run to their respective siblings to hug them. Their embrace is worthy of the many years the siblings have been apart.

  
Eleven is the last to step out of the ship. When she makes her appearance, Nancy and Jonathan return to their professional demeanour and motion for the soldiers to escort them all to a briefing room.

  
“I need to get to Ahch-To” Eleven asks of the elder Wheeler sibling.

  
“Wait, just let me catch up. Where’s Steve?” Nancy asks.

  
Eleven hesitates to tell her the truth, “He’s gone, Kali was there” she replies.

  
The looks on Jonathan and Nancy’s faces gave away their surprise and sadness.

  
“So what’s at Ahch-To?” Nancy asks.

  
“Rey” Eleven replies.

  
Nancy suddenly realizes the importance of what she’s just heard. With only less than a dozen Jedi scattered throughout the galaxy, the Republic could use all the assistance it could get whether it be from an Eleven fully trained in the Force or whether Rey decides to end her self-imposed exile.

  
“Okay, I can contact my superiors about getting you the coordinates to Ahch-To and I can provide you with a ship to get you there” Nancy explains to the young Jedi.

  
“Mike,” Nancy continues, “can I see you alone in the next room?”

  
Mike and Nancy leave the others and enter an empty briefing room.

  
“I’ve been worried sick about you. You won’t believe how many times I’ve wondered if you’re okay or if your luck’s run out and one of your bounties has gone wrong” the elder Wheeler sibling explains.

  
It had been a bit more than a year since the Wheeler siblings had seen each other. In that time, Mike had travelled the galaxy with his friends collecting bounties and going on all sorts of adventures and misadventures. Meanwhile, Nancy had graduated from the New Republic Military Academy and quickly rose to the rank of captain, already participating in several battles.

  
“Anyway” she continues, “I’ve brought you here because I’ve been instructed by Republic High Command to offer you and a position in the Republic Special Forces. We’ve all heard of your feats at Muunilinst”.

  
Mike hesitated to reply, he spent so much time away from Nancy to avoid this decision. When their mother refused to help the First Order design new superweapons, they mercilessly killed their parents and burned down his home. Perhaps through, maybe it was fate (or the Force) that brought Eleven to him, that brought him and his sister back together, and has given him a chance to finally confront the First Order.

  
“I’ll do it,” he says “On one condition: my friends join me”.

  
“That can be done,” Nancy tells him.

  
The two head back into the main briefing room: Mike now confident that he’s made the right decision.

  
“Eleven, why don’t you head with captain Byers here to the hangar bay, and he can help you get a get a ship prepared” Nancy explains.

  
Eleven nods and heads out with Jonathan towards the hangar bay. As soon as the door closes, Nancy turns her attention towards boys.

  
“Okay, so I’ve offered Mike a position in the Republic Special Forces, but he’s given me one condition, that you guys join him. So what do you say?”

  
The boys all look at each other before nodding in agreement, not wanting to lose a good chance for adventure and to fight the First Order.

  
“Okay then, bring him in” Nancy motions to one of the guards in the room.

  
A door opens and in walks a man with dark hair in regal robes to the opposite side of the table where the boys are sitting.

  
“Gentlemen, I’m sure you all know of senator Poe Dameron” Nancy announces to the room.

  
“We have a mission for you. Republic Intelligence has reports that the First Order have constructed a fleet of superweapons the likes of which we have never seen before. Something that could turn the tide of the war in their favour. Captain Wheeler” he redirects the briefing  
“Based on what we have from Imperial records, we believe the First Order got the plans for this superweapon based on Imperial designs. But this is where we get lucky, we know the location of the designs. They’re being held inside used to be Darth Vader’s castle on Mustafar, now a research and development installation for the First Order.”

  
Poe interjects “Your mission will be to infiltrate the castle, and access the data vault in order to retrieve the plans for this super weapon”.

  
“We have a tactical team already prepped for you and debriefed, as well as a stolen shuttle of you to get onto the planet” Nancy explains.

  
“May the Force be with you,” Poe tells the group before leaving.

  
The Wheeler siblings and the party all started walking through the hangar bay towards their awaiting shuttle. Outside their shuttle, a small group of Republic Special Forces Commandos were waiting for them. As they were heading towards their shuttle, Mike spotted a familiar face, it was El, now dressed in an orange flight suit with a helmet at hand overseeing a crew prepping her X-Wing. He started running towards her.

  
“El!” he shouts to her, drawing her attention”

  
“Mike” she responds.

  
“So, I guess you’re really doing it huh? Going to Rey to finish your Jedi training and everything?” he asks.

  
El just nods her head to confirm. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something inside her was scared about telling him with words that she’d be gone from his life with no signs of when they’d reunite.

  
“Cool, well, guess what? The Republic has made me a lieutenant now. They’re even sending me and the guys on a mission and stuff” Mike tells El as he tries to diffuse the tension “Well, just be careful okay? Promise me?”

  
“I promise” she replies.

  
The two stare at each other, both dreading the fact they’d entered each other’s lives only to be ripped apart so soon. Before either of them knew it, their faces were drawn towards each other, leaning in.

  
“Mike!” Nancy yells for her brother, the sudden noise jolting El and Mike apart.

  
“Coming!” he yells back “I guess I have to go now”.

  
“Yeah, me too,” El says.

  
Mike starts walking towards the shuttle to meet his group before turning around to face El.

  
“Hey, El?”

  
El turns around to face Mike.

  
“Yeah?” she says.

  
“May the Force be with you,” Mike says with a weak simile, trying to savour this moment.

  
El similes back before both have to return to their respective missions. Mike then starts discussing his mission with Nancy and their assembled team before heading into their shuttle. As Mike enters the cockpit, he notices El’s blue X-Wing lifting off before entering hyperspace in a streak of light. Mike can’t help but worry a bit as he realizes that he might never see her again.

  
Soon, Nancy finds herself in Mike’s situation as she watches as Mike’s shuttle leaves the hangar bay wondering if she’ll see her brother again after their time apart. She reaches for her the necklace given to her by her mother before her death and remembers what she told her before she died.

  
“Trust the Force” Nancy whispers.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven meets Rey.

El’s X-Wing exits hyperspace as she approaches the watery-blue world of Ahch-To.

  
“Well there it is R4, Ahch-To,” El tells her astromech droid.

  
The droid replies with a series of whistles and beeps.

  
“Yes, I’m sure master Rey is there” she replies.

  
Eleven pulls her X-Wing down below the clouds and soon she finds herself almost skimming the water as she heads towards the island where she was told that she would find Rey. She lands her fighter on a grassy clearing next to an old freighter. After her fighter touches down upon the ground and she reaches out of the fighter’s canopy, she notices that she already has a welcoming party as a Wookiee and an R2 unit come out of the fighter.

  
“Hello? I’m Eleven, I’m here to find Rey” she tells the two.

  
The Wookiee emits a series of low growls and roars. Eleven recognizes it as Shyriiwook, one of the languages of the Wookiee species. During her time as Steve’s apprentice, El managed to learn enough Shyriiwook to have a basic understanding of it.

  
“She’s here? At the Jedi temple?”

  
The Wookiee nods to confirm.

  
“Well, thank you,” El tells the tall Wookiee.

  
The R2 unit emits a series of excited beeps as Eleven walks up to a series of steps towards the location of the first Jedi temple. The Wookiee and the astromech watch for a bit before heading back into their freighter. After ascending and descending the island’s windy and hilly routes, El finds an entrance to a cave, she walks in to find a cavern with a single mosaic portrait of a Jedi and at the other end, there was another opening which helped to bathe the cavern in the light. She approaches the opening where she can see Rey hovering over a rock crossed legged, in a meditative trance was master Rey completely attuned to the Force. Rey lowers herself to sit on the rock before she turns around to face Eleven. The two Force-wielders stare at each other briefly, studying each other. Suddenly, a storm roams on to the island and Rey motions to the younger woman to come with her. El does so and follows Rey towards a small cluster of stone huts where Rey leads her into one of the larger huts.

  
“Master Rey, I’m here because Steve sent me here, I need you to complete my Jedi training” El pleads to the the elder Jedi.

  
“No, I can’t train you. I can’t be what you need me to be” she replies.

  
Eleven stands there confused, why can’t Rey train her? She is the greatest Jedi in the galaxy, every Jedi in the galaxy was trained by Rey.

  
“I sense much anger in you,” Rey tells Eleven.

  
“I wasn’t much different when you trained me” Steve’s voice announces.

  
“I can’t, not after I failed Kali” Rey says.

  
“You didn’t fail Kali, Kali failed you. I won’t” Eleven pleads to Rey.

  
Rey experiences deja vu and has a brief flashback to her initial time on Ahch-To with Luke Skywalker. She knew that she couldn’t repeat the past, but she was still unsure of herself.

  
“Rey, don’t you remember what I told you about failure? Master Yoda told me that failure is the greatest teacher. You have to pass on everything you’ve learnt Rey, even your failures. Especially your failures” a fourth voice in the cavern now tells her.

  
Rey turns towards Eleven and sees a bit of herself in this moment, a scared child who needed her guidance and reassurance about her place in the galaxy. It was then that she knew what she needed to do and as she came to this realization she also noticed that the storm had passed.

  
“Alright, let’s start your training,” Rey tells the young Jedi hopeful.

  
The two hike back towards the Jedi temple where Rey directs her back to the opening that overlooked the ocean. She instructs Eleven to sit on the rock, with her legs crossed and her eyes closed.

  
“Breathe, just breathe,” she tells the young girl “now reach out”.

  
Eleven reaches her hand out and Rey realizes that they might be more similar than she’d thought.

  
“I meant with your feelings” Rey clarifies.

  
“Oh, right,” Eleven said with a hint of embarrassment.

  
Eleven reached out to the Force and immediately saw everything on the island: the lush grass, the decayed bodies of long dead animals, flowers growing and creating new life, and the coldness of the ocean’s waves against the jagged rocks.

  
“I see life, death, creating new life, cold, warmth” El announces to her new teacher.

  
“And that is the Force, life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy binds everything on this island” Rey tells her new pupil.

  
Suddenly, Eleven’s voice starts to grow uneasy “There’s something else, darkness. I feel fear, anger” she tells Rey.

  
“Resist it, Eleven!” Rey shouts.

  
Eleven can see a dark cavern on the island, before seeing an ocean wave wash over her. She screams before opening her eyes and emerging in a cold sweat. El grabbed on to the rock as she tries to process what she has just seen.

  
“What you just felt was the dark side of the Force. That cave, it calls to you just like it did to me when I started my training” Rey explains, now in front of El with her hand on the other’s shoulder.

  
“And you must go into that cave if you are to complete your training,” Rey tells Eleven.

  
Eleven accepts what Rey has just told her with fear and hesitation. The two trek down the island towards a circular hole with seaweed growing out of it.

  
“In that cave, you will face your fears,” Rey tells her student.

  
“What’s in there?” El asks.

  
“Only what you bring with you” Rey explains.

  
Eleven takes another step forward towards the entrance.

  
“Your lightsaber, you won’t need it,” Rey tells her student.

  
Eleven tosses her lightsaber towards Rey, before diving into the water. After rising up to the surface, she sees a small landing and swims towards it. As she swims closer, she can see that the cave isn’t truly a cave at all, instead there’s a mirror-like wall where the entrance should be. El makes it on to the rocky shore, where she immediately walks towards the mirror-like wall and then touches it.

  
El immediately finds herself inside a dark void, somehow able to see and yet pitch-black all around, she looks down and notices that she’s standing on a thin film of water that covers the black floor beneath her. She sees a woman in a rocking chair in a catatonic state. Eleven slowly approaches her before reaching out and touching her hand. In the blink of an eye, she sees the woman giving birth, surrounded by medical droids supervised by what looked like a single human doctor. Seeing through the woman’s eyes she can see that the doctor is Supreme Leader Brenner. Eleven then realizes that the woman must be her mother. She then sees the woman trying to claim her before being dragged away by stormtroopers. The next vision she sees is the woman being tortured with interrogation droids damaging her mind.

  
“Mama!” Eleven yells.

  
The horrifying vision eventually stops and the next thing Eleven knows is that she finds herself in Rey’s hut. Rey has managed to start a fire and placed a blanket over her.

  
“Master Rey, I saw things in that cave. My mother, I saw my mother” Eleven says weakly.

  
“Eleven, do you know where you’re from?” the Jedi Master asks her student.

  
The young girl shakes her head before softly saying “bad place”.

  
“When I was your age, I always wondered where I came from. Why my parents left me on Jakku.” Rey explains “Eventually, I learned that I was focusing on the wrong things. I was always looking at the past, looking towards the horizon instead of focusing on what was right in front of me. My friends, the people who I loved.”  
“Friends” Eleven repeats. It was then that the young girl heeded Rey’s words. All her life she was focused on what her past was, on why it happened and the pain of that missing childhood never fully healed.

  
“Your friends, you love them don’t you?” Rey asks.

  
Eleven replies with a gentle nod.

  
“You know, I eventually did find my family. They were my friends: Leia, Finn, Poe, Chewie, even R2” Rey tells her pupil, simile on her face evident as she reminisces about old times.

  
Eleven takes what Rey has told her to heart. Never before has Eleven had someone in her life ever understand her as much as Rey did. Along with this feeling of camaraderie, El comes to another realization: perhaps the Force has given the family she’s wanted all along. Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will: never before in her life has she felt like she’s belonged anywhere until she met them. The two continued to discuss the nature of the Force, friendship, redemption and compassion before they drifted off to sleep in Rey’s hut.

  
That night, Eleven experiences a horrifying vision of Mike and his friends on a volcanic planet getting captured and dying at the hands of Kali and the First Order. She opens her eyes, gasping for air and holding her chest.

  
“Eleven! What is it? What did you see?” Rey asks her student.

  
“Mike. My friends” Eleven says, still trying to collect her thoughts and catch her breath “My friends, they’re in trouble. I have to go to them. They need me”.

  
“Eleven, please. You need to complete your training” Rey tells her.

  
“Mike, he’ll die if I don’t go to him” El pleads.

  
“You don’t know that” Rey retorts.

  
“I have to go” Eleven defiantly tells Rey for a final time, grabbing her lightsaber and satchel from the hut before making her way to her X-Wing.

  
Eleven climbs into her X-Wing and starts making preparations for her trip to Mustafar, waving goodbye to Chewbacca and R2 as she preps her fighter’s engines when all of a sudden she hears a familiar voice.

  
“Wait!” Rey yells to her “if you’re going to do this then let’s do this together. We’ll take the Falcon”.

  
El is shocked and surprised as Rey tells Chewie to ready the Falcon for the trip to Mustafar. She quickly gets out of her X-Wing and boards the Millennium Falcon, with Chewbacca in the cockpit the Falcon quickly lifts off before jumping to light speed.

  
Rey hugs her new student before telling her with a smile “Come on, let’s give the galaxy some hope”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed what you've read! As usual, comments are always welcome. Hopefully, I've gotten the characters in this story right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Party looks for superweapon plans.

Mike is in the cockpit of their stolen First Order shuttle busy going over the intelligence reports that his sister has handed over to him while their shuttle is travelling through hyperspace. He can’t help, however, but have Eleven on the back of his mind as he wonders if she’s safe.

The shuttle jumps out of hyperspace, and in front them, the team can see the volcanic planet. As they get closer to the planet’s atmosphere. They can see two First Order star destroyers in orbit above the planet, along with a circular shield gate maintaining access to and from the planet’s surface.

  
“Okay, so we’re going to have to go through that shield gate if we want to get to Vader’s castle. Let’s just hope that access code the Republic gave us works” Mike tells his team.

  
“And if it doesn’t?” Dustin asks.

  
“Then this might be the shortest mission, anyone of us, ever go on” Mike answers.

  
Everyone looks at each other with unease at this fact as their shuttle approaches closer to the shield gate.

  
Mike takes a deep breath before he hits the button to hail the control tower at the shield gate “Cargo shuttle SW-008 requesting a landing pad”.

  
“Shuttle SW-008, transmit clearance code for shield entry,” the gate officer asks.

  
“Transmitting clearance code now” Mike replies.

  
It was at that moment that one could encounter nothing but dead silence on that ship as each person on that ship held their breath in nervous anticipation that the code that the Republic provided for them would work.

  
“Cargo shuttle SW-008 you are cleared for an entry,” the gate officer tells him.

  
Everyone on the ship breathes a sigh of relief as the shuttle slowly descends its way down towards the surface and towards Vader’s castle.

  
“SW-008, you are cleared for Landing Pad 2. Acknowledge please” the officer requests.

  
“SW-008, proceeding to LP 2” Mike calmly tells the controller.

  
The party looks through the windows in awe of the spectacular sight that is Vader’s castle. It was a sleek obsidian structure that dominated over the sky and running right through it was a river of lava that cast a fiery red glow around it. Mike saw the outgrowth of landing pads that surrounded the structure, the files that were given to him by Nancy told him that these landing pads were a recent addition given the facility’s newfound importance with the First Order as a fortress and storeroom for many of the First Order’s plans for secret projects.

  
As Mike and Lucas land their shuttle, he sees that he’s being joined by the rest of his team looking to him for their plan to capture the superweapon plans.  
“Alright, so here’s the plan: me, Dustin, and Will will sneak into the main tower. Lucas, I’ll need you to stay with the ship so that we can make a quick escape.” He then looks towards the leader of the Republic commando team sent to help their team in their mission “Sergeant Melshi, do I have that right? I’m going to need you and your team to draw the stormtroopers in the castle away from us towards one of the landing pads furthest away from the castle’s main tower. Light this place up and get them as far away from us as you can. Everyone clear?”

  
Everyone in that ship nods their heads and immediately starts double-checking their equipment and weapons as they touch down upon the landing pad. Soon after Mike and the party can see a First Order inspection team about to board their ship. Mike directs the rest of the crew to hide while he meets the inspection team in the shuttle’s cargo bay, he gets the inspection team as far into the shuttle and away from prying eyes before directing the rest of the team to ambush them, knocking them out. Mike, Dustin, and Will then hurry to put on the inspection team’s uniforms and armour, none of which was exactly a good fit on any of them.

  
The three all calmly walk through the same door that the inspection team came through and head towards the main tower. At the same time, Lucas heads to the cockpit waiting for the moment to direct the strike team to sneak out of the shuttle and head towards a landing pad on the other side of the castle. He spots his perfect moment when a quick rainstorm passes by and the guards overlooking their platform change their shifts. Lucas quickly heads down to the cargo hold and instructs the soldiers to make their way out of the shuttle. Quickly, all but two members of the strike team rush out with two soldiers left behind to protect the shuttlecraft.

  
Mike, Dustin, and Will manage to make their way to the closest computer terminal. Will manages to slice into the First Order computer network and find the design documents and security plan for the castle.

  
“Alright, I managed to find us a way into the data vault. The only problem is that there are so many stormtrooper squads in our way that we’d be killed before we’d get there” Will tells his friends.

  
All three of them look at each other nervously, not liking their odds. Mike realizes that now is the time to call upon their distraction. He reaches for his communicator and hits a button.

  
“Melshi, you ready? Now’s the time. Light it up.” he commands the strike team leader.

  
Lucas nervously waits in the shuttle as he awaits some kind of sign that the strike has succeeded causing a distraction before hearing a series of roaring explosions in the background. He breathes a sigh of relief knowing that for now, their mission is succeeding and that the rest of his friends now have a better chance at reaching the data vault.

  
Mike, Dustin and Will continue on walking towards the data vault. As they do, they can start to hear the loud sirens and announcements stating that the base is under attack. Most importantly for them, however, they can see that squads of stormtroopers are making their way out of the building and towards the landing pads. They walk towards a First Order officer manning another terminal with two guards behind him, he notices that they are walking towards him and faces them.

  
“Hello, may I ask why you’re here?” the officer asks of them, suspicious of why a landing pad inspection team would be doing so far into the castle.

  
“We were uh, instructed to take shelter until the attack is dealt with! Can you direct us to the location of the closest safe room?” Mike quickly improvises.

  
“Hmm, right. I’ll get you an escort to a safe location until the base is secure” the officer says, motioning for his guards to approach the trio.

  
“Crap, I think we’ve been found,” Dustin says before quickly firing his blaster at the nearest guard.

  
Soon, Mike and Will fire their blasters and the other guard and their commanding officer are quickly dispatched. Will pushes over the now dead officer and accesses the terminal.

  
“Okay, I can get you guys into the data vault and but you’ll have to use the handles in the data vault to find the data tape” Will explains to Mike and Dustin.

  
Mike and Dustin open the door into the data vault handling room. Mike manages to use the room’s robotic handling mechanism to retrieve the data tape from the vault’s long storage column housing all the tapes. He grabs the tape and puts it into his pocket, then he and Dustin run out of the data vault to meet Will who was still managing the terminal.

  
“Will, I’ve got the plans, let’s go” Mike yells, as the run to make their escape.

  
Meanwhile, Lucas is busy waiting for his friends to return when he overhears that a contingent of stormtroopers is about to flank the strike team. Thinking quickly, he instructs the two soldiers still on the shuttle to stay up and keep the shuttle ready. He reaches for his bag of bounty hunting equipment when he finds his Wrist Rocket, the wrist-mounted rocket launcher he always keeps nearby. He puts it on before leaving the shuttle and runs towards the direction of the stormtrooper group. Eyeing them through the scope of his Wrist Rocket, he fires a shot creating a huge fireball and blowing away many of the stormtroopers. They quickly return fire and focus their attention on him, giving chase. Lucas sprints towards the cargo shuttle, having it in his sights when suddenly he sees a grenade tossed into the shuttle’s cargo bay followed by a large explosion that sends him flying back. The next thing Lucas saw were the helmets of stormtroopers with their blasters pointed at him as they commanded him to stand with his hands behind his head.

  
Mike, Dustin and Will are running towards to the landing pad when they spot their shuttle explodes. They all barely have time to think about what happened to their team and Lucas, when they themselves are caught in an ambush by stormtroopers. The three of them manage to pick a few off, Mike sees that they can not possibly win this fight and will have to surrender. He quickly slides the data tape into his boot before dropping his weapon and raising his hands to surrender. The party is soon reunited as they march towards an empty landing pad, rejoining the surviving members of their strike team in the process. A First Order officer arrives and announces that they will all be executed by blaster. The group is lined up for execution when suddenly they hear a distant howl, everyone looks up to see the silhouettes of X-Wings in racing towards them. Before on the landing pad knew what was happening, the Republic team heard blaster fire landing behind them, they all turn around to see several of their would-be executors dead, thrown several metres back. The remaining stormtroopers try to get into defensive positions and fire back at the fighters but most are easily picked off. The strike team all take advantage of this chaos to grab weapons off the dead stormtroopers and fight off their captors. Lucas after grabbing one of the stormtrooper’s blaster rifles manages to see one of the X-Wings shoot a stormtrooper right in front of him before flying off to shoot down three TIE fighters.

  
“Woo! That’s one hell of a pilot!” he yells.

  
“Come on!” Mike yells at him as he tries to get his squad to find another shuttle.

  
The party all head off back to the castle, their strike team leading the way and clearing the path ahead of any stormtroopers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the battle from the sky.

Captain Nancy Wheeler heads into one of her ship’s briefing rooms to monitor the activity on Mustafar. As she enters she finds Jonathan already there, directing his officers to intercept all incoming and outgoing transmissions from the planet.

  
“Anything yet?” She asks him.

  
“Nothing yet, we know from their transponder that they’ve made it to the planet, but we don’t know anything besides that” He replies.

  
Nancy was worried, she had studied the battle of Scarif extensively and could not help but worry that she might have sent Mike and his friends to their death.

Fortunately, she came prepared in case the mission went wrong: she had another cargo shuttle prepared and had one of her fighter squadrons on standby in case air support was needed.

  
“Umm, sir? Ma’am? I think I have something that you’ll want to know” of the officers told them.

  
“What is it?”

  
“It’s Kali. Her shuttle has just arrived at the base on Mustafar” He explains to them.

  
“Shit” Nancy exclaims.

  
Nancy knew what it would mean if Kali was on the planet; Mike’s mission would suddenly become more complicated. First, he has no idea that Kali would be there, none of the intelligence reports given to him mentioned that possibility. If Kali went up again Mike and his friends directly, they’d never stand a chance. Second, Kali had an elite group of stormtroopers with her as her personal guard that could take out their strike team easily if they were deployed.

  
“Nancy, we’ve intercepted another transmission from Mustafar. They’re reporting an attack” Jonathan tells her.

  
Nancy knew it wouldn’t be long before Kali took command of the battle, and that there was a good chance that she would join the fight herself. She knew she had to act fast if Mike and his friends were to make it out of there alive.

  
“Tell lieutenant Mayfield to get her squadron ready and let Republic High Command know that Kali is on Mustafar” she tells one of the junior officers.  
She then left the briefing room to head back to the ship’s bridge, knowing that she might have to get the ship ready to jump into hyperspace to join the battle. After receiving the go-ahead from her commanders, Nancy directed her crew to make preparations for the trip to Mustafar where she would lead a small fleet to ensure that the superweapon plans were captured and if possible to either kill or capture Kali.

  
Maxine ‘Max’ Mayfield is perhaps the best pilot the Republic has had since Poe Dameron or Wedge Antilles. Not even reaching the age of twenty yet, she has managed to climb to the rank of lieutenant and commands her own squadron. As their cruiser jumped into hyperspace, Max took the time to ensure that her squadmates knew of their mission: provide cover for the strike team down on Mustafar and evacuate them. Like Nancy, she too was aware of the mistakes at Scarif and would be sure not to repeat those mistakes, to that end she instructed her pilots to fire their missiles into the shield gate’s hangar bays and deflector shields so that the other fighter squadrons would have an easier time covering for them.

  
As their cruiser exits hyperspace, the squadron manages to leave the hangar and begin their preparations for the attack on Mustafar. They first aim their missiles at the shield gate hangar bays and deflector shields before diving through the shield gate towards the fiery volcanic planet.

  
“Everyone, stay close and follow me,” Max tells her squad mates as they dive their fighters towards the obsidian spire that dominated the First Order base.

  
As Max got closer to the base, she could start making out more detail including the distinct white armour of the stormtroopers. Getting closer, she could see a squad of stormtroopers surrounding their strike team. Knowing that she and her fighter squadron would have to act fast, Max orders her fighters to target the stormtroopers and fire their weapons immediately. As Max flies around to make sure her shots hit the stormtroopers she sees a stormtrooper aim their blaster at one of the team members and fires her laser cannons at them before any of the stormtroopers could squeeze their triggers. Soon, she and her squad are joined by another threat; swarms of TIE fighters were now streaming out of every hangar bay on the base.

  
“Red leader, I have two TIEs on my tail!” one of her squad mates tells her.

  
“Copy that, Red five” Max replies as she flies in behind the chasing TIE fighters before firing her laser cannons.

  
The battle was going well for Max’s squadron at first, but as the battle dragged on more and more of her squadmates her getting picked off by the more numerous swarms of TIE fighters that were relentlessly pursuing them. Soon, her squadron only had half the X-Wings they did entering the battle. Before Max had any time to process this information, however, she herself was being chased by three TIE fighters. Max asks her astromech droid BB-9 to increase power to the rear deflector shields while she tries to outmanoeuvre them. One of the TIEs manages to land a shot and Max soon realizes she is in a dire situation as her deflector shield won’t be able to handle any more hits. Suddenly, she hears three explosions coming from behind her and when she turns back the TIEs have all disappeared in fiery explosions. She looks back towards her left side and sees an old freighter. It suddenly dawns on her that it’s the Millennium Falcon.

  
“Woo! I forgot how great this feels! Okay Red leader, we’ll help you draw away those fighters as soon as we drop someone off at the base” a female voice from the Falcon tells Max over her X-Wing’s communication system followed by an animalistic growl.

  
Max looked over at the Falcon as it briefly hovered over one of the landing pads and sees a girl in Jedi robes entering the base. It takes Max a good second to put the pieces together but she quickly realizes that Rey and Chewbacca are in the Falcon. Soon, the Falcon lifted off to join the remainder of the X-Wings in battle. Max’s determination to defeat the First Order was quickly buoyed by the fact that she was fighting alongside galactic heroes Rey and Chewbacca.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the most Empire Strikes Back-like chapter so far.

Mike had to quickly think fast as his party and strike team were rushing into the castle. After they found the closest computer terminal, Will accessed it to find an escape route. After running through what seems like an endless maze of corridors and countless platforms, the group finally manages to manage to spot the hangar bay at the end of a long narrow corridor. They manage to make it to the hangar, but suddenly a force pulls Mike backwards and the door separating the corridor from the hangar closes, cutting off the group from Mike. Walking in behind him is Kali, Mike and his team try desperately to force open the door but they are only able to open it a few centimetres. Realizing that he can’t escape, Mike grabs the data tape and hands it over to what he thinks it Dustin’s hand. He makes them promise to take the tape to the Republic before telling them to go. Seeing Kali and stormtroopers march towards him, Mike is prepared for the worst that could come to him. As he’s expecting Kali to strike him down he instead sees her instruct her stormtroopers to take him away. As he’s being dragged by the stormtroopers, he can see a familiar figure approach Kali; it’s his own arch-enemy Troy.

  
“Troy?” He asks with anger and confusion.

  
“Wheeler, you know how many bounties there are out in galaxy for you?” Troy tells him tauntingly.

  
“Take him to the interrogation cell,” Kali tells her stormtroopers.

  
“You better not kill him. he’s worth a lot to me alive, and I didn’t track him just for you, Wheeler’s got a lot of enemies in this galaxy.” Troy explains to Kali.

  
“You’ll get him when I get Eleven, and if he is killed the First Order will compensate you fairly,” Kali tells him.

  
As the bounty hunter and dark Jedi march with the stormtroopers to take their prisoner away, Mike contemplates the horrifying implications that he’s being used to draw El into a trap. As he is being led up to a landing pad, he spots someone familiar in a Jedi robe: it’s El. As El activates her lightsaber, Troy and some of the stormtroopers begin to fire in her direction.

  
“El! No! It’s a trap! It’s a trap!” Mike yells as the stormtroopers drag him away through a doorway.

  
Eventually, the blaster fire stops and El cautiously follows them with her lightsaber ignited. She finds her way onto a lift and onto a dark platform. She cautiously explores her surroundings, as she moves forward she makes her way to another platform overlooking a huge shaft that seemed to be bottomless from her perspective. As she looked to her right side, she could see the fiery molten landscape of Mustafar. El then found herself feeling a familiar and cold presence when suddenly the doors in front of her opened and out of the blinking light that emitted from behind those doors where two figures: one of who was Kali and the other was someone of roughly Mike’s age also wearing armour carrying a heavy blaster.

  
“I’ll give you triple what I gave you for Wheeler if you capture her,” Kali tells Troy.

  
“Deal” Troy replies as he aims his blaster at El.

  
El manages to deflect all of his blaster bolts as the bounty hunter slowly advances towards her. When Troy gets within arms-length, she slices his blaster before force pushing him off the platform into the bottomless abyss below them. Kali was disappointed but not too surprised that El had made such short work of the bounty hunter, El was already powerful when she was her apprentice and she could sense that she had only gotten stronger since then. Kali then ignited her own lightsaber, it’s red glow matching the lava rivers of the landscape outside. The former student and teacher cautiously approach each other, El’s blue blade now ignited. Kali tests her former pupil’s skills with a strike to the side which El effortlessly parries.

  
“I see Steve has taught you well,” Kali says.

  
El ignores Kali’s words and attacks Kali; Kali blocks the attack thinking she has the advantage when El extends her other hand and force pushes Kali against the doorway from which she entered. Kali quickly rises back up and walks back towards Eleven.

  
“Eleven joins me, and together we can destroy Brenner and bring peace to the galaxy. I can teach you to harness your anger and together we’ll be powerful enough to kill the Supreme Leader” Kali pleads with her pupil.

  
“I still sense the good in you, Kali, it’s not too late for you to return to the light. I know master Rey is only a little older than you, but she can help you with your pain” El replies.

  
“You are as naive as you are powerful Eleven,” Kali tells her as the two continue to encircle each other with their lightsabers ignited.

  
The two briefly spar again, either going for a killing blow as both wanted to try to bring the other to their side.

  
“I can sense your emotions Eleven, you fear for your friends’ safety. You want to protect them; an admirable goal but you must they are holding you back from your true potential” Kali states.

  
This time, Eleven was fearful that Kali was pulling her love of her friends against her.

  
“I have foreseen this Eleven, that’s why I captured your bounty hunter. I knew you would come here” Kali says tauntingly.

  
The knowledge that it was Kali who ordered Mike’s capture was enough to spark the anger that was smouldering inside El. She quickly lunges at Kali, temporarily unbalancing Kali as she retreats from El’s flurry of attacks. Kali quickly counterattacks, sending a series of strikes to force El to slow her advance. El uses the Force to push a piece of equipment towards  Kali which she deflects and pushes towards a window, shattering it. El then uses the Force against Kali herself, sending her flying towards the window. Kalie manages to grab onto the window ledge, pulling herself up and maintaining a defensive stance.

  
“Eleven, you have so much raw power. You need a teacher, Rey can’t teach you your gifts, I can” Kali tells her.

  
El once again force pushes her, sending falling outside. She jumps onto the window ledge to see where her former master went, looking down to see her on the landing platform below. She jumps down to meet her. The two fight again, their lightsabers clashing as they attempt to strike down each other. They eventually lock lightsabers, before Kali manages to free her lightsaber and strike El’s shoulder. Kali then slashes El’s back, causing her to fall down and scream in pain.

  
“Eleven, the Jedi will never treat you as one of their own. You know why?” Kali says tauntingly.

  
“You’re lying. I will become a Jedi, Steve told me so” El says weakly.

  
“Supreme Leader Brenner is your father, you were created to be the perfect dark side weapon Eleven. You can not run from your destiny Eleven, but I can teach you how to meet it” Kali tells her former pupil.

  
“Search your feelings Eleven, you know it to be true” Kali tells her.

  
“No!” Eleven screams, the sheer power of her fear and disbelief throwing Kali off the elevated landing pad and damaging any equipment around her. The grief sends a ripple through the Force that could be felt by any Force-sensitive around the planet. El eventually falls unconscious from her use of the Force.

  
Up in the skies of Mustafar, Dustin, Lucas, Will, and the strike team were settling down in the Millennium Falcon while Chewbacca was piloting and Rey was in the gunner’s seat. The Republic had managed to get control of the skies, and were mopping up the remaining TIE fighters; suddenly Rey felt a disturbance in the Force.

  
“Eleven,” she says as she realizes that her pupil is in trouble.

  
Rey quickly leaves her gunner’s seat as she rushes into the cockpit and directs Chewbacca towards the landing pad where she sees her student lying on the landing pad. She asks Dustin and Lucas to pilot the Falcon while she and Chewbacca lower the ship’s ramp and carry the unconscious Eleven on board. They then leave the planet’s atmosphere and join the Republic’s fleet where Eleven is looked after in the Ackbar’s medical bay. When El finally regains consciousness, she can see Rey, Chewbacca, Will, Lucas, and Dustin surrounding her.

  
“Mike? Where’s Mike Is he safe?” El softly whimpers.

  
The unease on everyone’s faces gave away the answer to El’s question, slowly they explained that Mike had been captured by the First Order and that they didn’t know where he was. El shed a tear before looking at Rey and at that moment she reached out into the Force, it was through the Force that she could feel Mike’s presence. She couldn’t see him through the Force, but knowing that he was alive somewhere in the galaxy was enough to give her hope that she would one day see Mike again.

  
“He’s out there, I felt it,” she tells her friends.

  
Over the next day or so, El gets some much-needed rest while Rey, Chewbacca, and the Party look over her. Eventually, the Party comes up with a plan to take the Falcon and go through First Order bases to find Mike. Rey and Chewbacca agree to let them borrow the Falcon while El is making her recovery and getting rest.  
Two days after her rescue, El is awakened from her bed rest by Rey. Rey tells El that her friends are on the Falcon and are about to search for Mike before she hands her a communicator. El takes the communicator and hears Dustin’s voice.

  
“Don’t worry El, we’ll find Mike. This party has a rule that if a party member requires our assistance it is our duty to provide that assistance. We’ll contact you when we find him” Dustin tells El from inside the Falcon’s cockpit.

  
“We’ll find him, we promise” Lucas reassures El.

  
El can’t help but simile a bit before replying “Good luck, may the Force be with you”.

  
El cautiously gets out of her bed as she walks towards her room’s viewport looking at the vast galaxy where somewhere, on some planet, Mike was being held captive. She was quickly joined by Chewbacca and Rey who were standing by her. As El watched the Falcon; she realized that both of them hand their hands on her shoulders as she gazed at the site of the Falcon jumping off into hyperspace amidst the backdrop of the galaxy.


	9. Chapter 9

Stormtroopers have left Mike inside a cold interrogation room after waking him up in the middle of the night. This wasn’t the first time that Mike was brought for an interrogation, and Mike knew it probably would not be the last time. Soon, Mike sees two First Order officers, one male and one female, enter the room with their interrogation droid.

  
“Michael Wheeler, possession of stolen property, aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and now treason and espionage. You’re lucky we’re as merciful to you as we are” one of the officers tells him.

  
“We could, of course, make this all much easier for you and us if you simply told us all you knew about the whereabouts of the Jedi known as Eleven” the other officer states.

  
Mike looks up at his captors, then utters: “I’ve told you everything. I don’t know where she is, and even if I did. I’d never tell you. I’d never tell you”.

  
“That girl is Jedi scum and the First Order will capture her with or without your help!” the female officer yells.

  
“Look, you’re putting yourself at great risk if you don’t tell us what you know soon. We can’t protect you” the male officer calmly tell him as he’s bending down to be on Mike’s level.

  
“Look, you can stop your good cop, bad cop routine alright? What part of never tell you don’t you understand?” Mike angrily tells his captors.

  
“Fine, then you leave us no choice,” the female officer tells him as they exit the room leaving the interrogation droid behind.

  
After what feels like hours of torture by the interrogation droid, two stormtroopers finally enter the room and drag Mike back to his cell. He gets up from the cold floor onto his bunk, grabs a thin strip of metal that he keeps tucked away and begins etching on the wall.

  
“Three hundred and fifty-three days, I’ve been on this planet for three hundred and fifty-three days” Mike utters to himself.

  
The next day, Mike sees two officers and two stormtroopers enter his cell.

  
“This is your last chance, anything to tell us?” one of the officers asks.

  
Mike just stares back in silence.

  
“Well then, we are here to inform you that Supreme Leader Brenner has taken notice of you and has summoned you to his personal flagship. There he will personally rip the information out of your mind. You are scheduled to leave on the next available shuttle in approximately an hours time” the officer tells him in a monotone voice before leaving with his partner and stormtrooper guards.

  
Mike took his time to contemplate what the officer had just told him. He’s heard stories about Force-users being able to pull the information out of people’s minds; that Kylo Ren could rip the information out of the mind of any Resistance prisoner they came across. While Mike has been able to resist all of the First Order’s worst interrogation techniques so far, for the first time since he was captured he was actually worried that they’d get information that would lead back to his friends, his sister, and El. He starts to worry that he could possibly be jeopardizing everything they stood for and fought for.

  
After what seems like ages, two stormtroopers eventually come to his cell to pick him up. Mike can’t help but notice that one of the stormtroopers seems awfully short, but that thought quickly passes his mind as he’s put into handcuffs and lead out of the prison into an old Imperial-era transport. The two stormtroopers join him in the transport’s prison hold along with another stormtrooper already waiting for him. Mike quickly looks around and sees that he’s the only prisoner on board. The trip on the transport is long and rocky, and Mike can’t help but notice that the short stormtrooper keeps looking at him. Suddenly, the transport makes a sudden stop.

  
“What now?” one of the stormtroopers asks.

  
“I don’t know, must be another pick-up” another answers.

  
“I thought we were just taking this guy” he responds.

  
The next thing Mike could see where sparks on the transport’s door followed by the door blowing out. Mike then heard what sounded like blaster fire being exchanged outside. Suddenly, two of the stormtroopers had flung out the door as if pulled by a magnet. Mike turned around to see the remaining stormtrooper who was now standing with one arm outstretched. The stormtrooper then turns towards mike and releases him from his handcuffs.

  
“Who are you?” he asks, still slightly confused about the events that just happened.

  
The stormtrooper takes off her helmet before replying with “Someone who loves you”.

  
“El,” Mike says to himself, eyes wide and jaw slightly dropped as he’s overcome with emotion.

  
The two rush to embrace each other. When they pull back, El can see the shock and happiness on his face as El smiles brightly back at him. As they leave the transport, Mike can see Lucas and Dustin in stormtrooper armour with their helmets off. They both rush to hug him. As soon as Dustin pulls out of Mike’s embrace, he reaches for a communicator.

  
“We’ve got him. You can make your way down, hurry it won’t be long before they send reinforcements this way” he speaks with urgency as they all wish to take Mike to safety.

  
Soon, a ship arrives that looks oddly familiar yet he’s certain that he’s never been in it before. As he gets closer, he sees a Wookiee and a red-haired girl in the cockpit, and a brown-haired woman just a few years older than Nancy in robes coming out of the boarding ramp. It soon dawns on him that he’s seeing the Millennium Falcon and that he’ll soon be in the same starship as legendary galactic heroes Rey and Chewbacca. Mike boards and stares for a bit in awe of the legendary starship and envy of any starship captain in the galaxy before taking a seeing a feeling the ship take off. As the Falcon is briefly pursued by two TIE fighters, Rey races into the Falcon’s gunner’s seat and manages to blast one of the TIEs before the Falcon jumps into hyperspace. Looking around him, Mike is just happy to be in the company of his friends again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in releasing another chapter. Life just got in the way, I hope those of you still reading will enjoy this. I'm still working on having these stories not feel rushed and I'm trying my best to convey these characters emotions.


	10. Chapter 10

The party all rush to hug Mike as soon as they are in the safety of hyperspace. They all try to tell their story of scouring the galaxy and going through First Order records to try to find him. Eventually, they give him space and Mike gets a chance to meet Rey.

  
“Hi, I’m Mike,” he tells her, his voice soft as he’s working up the courage to meet face to face with one of his childhood heroes.

  
“I’m Rey. Eleven’s told me all about you” she replies.

  
“She has?” the tone in Mike’s voice gives his feelings away, his face now red.

  
“Yeah, you have some good friends Mike reminds me of my group of friends,” Rey tells him.

  
Mike then makes his way to the cockpit where he finds Chewbacca and a red-haired pilot. He turns towards the Wookiee.

  
“Hey, you’re Chewbacca aren’t you? You fought in the Clone Wars and the Rebellion!” Mike says excitedly.

  
The Wookiee replies with a loud roar.

  
“Cool, well, I’m Mike. My parents would tell me stories about how you and Han Solo fought the Empire” he eagerly tells the Wookiee.

  
His red-haired co-pilot soon turns to face Mike.

  
“So you’re captain Wheeler’s bounty hunting brother huh? I’m Max, the Republic sent me to help with your rescue” She explains to him.  
“Aren’t you like the Republic’s top fighter pilot?” he asks her.

  
“Well, they don’t call me ‘Zoomer’ for no reason” she responds.

  
“Wow,” he replies, trying to hide his amazement at meeting of the Republic’s top pilots.

  
The Falcon eventually reunites with the rest of the Republic fleet. Over the next day or so, Mike is examined for injuries from his months-long ordeal at the hands of the First Order and kept in the medical bay. During that time, El makes sure to visit him as much as she can when she’s not being trained in the Jedi ways by Rey. The rest of the party take turns keeping Mike company when El’s not there with him.

  
Soon after Mike was discharged from the medical bay, Nancy offered him the chance to lead another team on an important mission, with the same strike team and a command crew for a stolen First Order shuttle. the details of which were to be announced tomorrow by Poe Dameron. As he didn’t know where the other members of the party were, he would have to wait until the mission briefing to ask his friends.

  
The following day, Mike entered the briefing room to see that his friends, Chewbacca, and Max were already there. Looking up, he can see Nancy on a mezzanine level overlooking the briefing room. While Dustin and Lucas were both busy chatting with Max, Will noticed him and invited him to site with them. Soon he sees El and Rey enter and as soon as El sees him she quickly rushes over to him and sits by his side. Soon after, Poe Dameron enters the room and the holoprojector starts to display what looks like a boxy starship of some kind.

  
“The First Order has made a critical error and the time for our attack has come” he announces.

  
“We have finally managed to decrypt the data tape that lieutenant Wheeler and his team have supplied to us” he continues, briefly gesturing at Mike.

  
“From these tapes, we have learnt that the First Order has constructed a fleet of mobile weapons factories. They call them the World Devastators. Using these factories the First Order can strip a planet of all it’s resources and leave it permanently uninhabitable, all while adding to the arsenal of the First Order,” Poe explains to his audience as the hologram then starts to show a fleet of the World Devastators orbiting a planet “we know that the First Order has currently stationed this fleet around the forest moon of Endor”.

  
“Most importantly, we’ve learnt that Supreme Leader Brenner himself will be overseeing the completion of this fleet himself from his flagship” he adds.

  
“General Rey, please” Poe finishes his delivery and asks Rey to take over.

  
“Rey’s a general now?” Mike whispers.

  
“Yeah, chancellor Cameron asked her himself. Apparently, she’s the first Jedi general since the Clone Wars,” El explains to him.

  
“Based on the information from the data tape, we know that these weapons have droid brains meaning they’re mostly automated. We will send a strike team to the surface where the main World Devastator is undergoing it’s final tests and send out a shut-down order, deactivating the fleet.” Rey explains to the group assembled.

  
“Boy, I wonder who they got to pull that off” Dustin whispers to Mike.

  
“Lieutenant Wheeler, is your team ready?” Rey asks.

  
The entire party looks at him in disbelief.

  
“Umm, yeah, I have a strike team ready but I still don’t have a command team for the shuttle” he admits to the general.

  
Lucas, Dustin and Will all look towards each other before Will tells Mike “Mike, you can count us in, we are with you all the way”.

  
“Really? I don’t want to put you guys in danger” Mike tells them.

  
“Don’t forget, if a party member requires our assistance, it’s our job to give that assistance” Dustin responds.

  
“I’m in too” El adds.

  
“Well, if you’re all doing this, then count me in,” Max tells Mike.

  
“Looks like I’ve got my team!” Mike tells Rey excitedly.

  
“Excellent, now as for the Supreme Leader. He’ll be on his personal command ship  The Eclipse while it’s undergoing routine maintenance. This means that it’ll be unshielded and ripe for our attack. Chewie and I will lead the fighter attack against the ship” Rey announces.

  
Rey then dismisses all those present at the meeting and the everyone starts to head back to their posts. Rey then pulls El away from her friends to discuss something with her.

  
“Eleven, I’m sensing that you’ll meet Kali again soon. And when you do, you must be the one to confront her. I’ve trained you as best as I know how and I know you’re ready for this” Rey assures her.

  
El hesitantly nods in agreement before going back to join her friends. She soon found herself drawn away from her friends again, this time by Mike.  
“Hey, El. I just wanted to thank you for saving me from the First Order, I realized that I never got a chance to properly thank you” Mike tells her softly.  
“Mike, you don’t need to thank me. I’m just happy that you’re back” she replies.

  
“Yeah, I know, it’s just nice to say it I guess,” he tells her.

  
“Yeah, I know what you mean” she responds.

  
Mike tries to continue his train of thought “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I…”

  
Suddenly, Mike found his lips locked with El’s as she swooped in for a kiss before he could complete his sentence. When their faces parted again, El could see a look of surprise followed by a look of pure bliss on Mike’s face.

  
“I know. I love you too” she tells him.

  
The two of them then walk hand in hand to the rest of their group who were busy discussing their mission.

  
“Mike! Eleven! We’ve figured out a plan for the mission!” Dustin eagerly yells at the two.

  
As they got closer to their friends, they could see Max’s BB-9 unit projecting the plans for the World Devastator.

  
Max starts off “Okay, so once we get to the droid brain, BB-9 and Will can send the deactivation order, then our strike team can head to the shield generator and deactivate the Eclipse’s shields and that’ll let our fighters and cruisers take out the command ship and hopefully burn down the First Order once and for all”.  
“Okay, sounds good, are you sure your little droid can do it though?” Mike asks.

  
Max looks a bit offended before answering, “BB-9 is a top of the line, reprogrammed First Order astromech droid, of course, he can”.

  
Max then bends down to pat her droid and rub its head, telling him “I know you can buddy” smiling and treating the jet-black droid as if it was a pet.

  
The group gets themselves equipped for the mission and Nancy quickly gives them a more detailed report on what to expect once they make it onto the planet’s surface. Soon, they all head towards their shuttle where their strike team is already waiting for them. Eleven soon recognizes a familiar old face from her past amongst the team members.

  
“You must be lieutenant Wheeler, I’m sergeant Jim Hopper, I’ll be leading your strike team,” he tells Mike before realizing that the Jedi with him was the girl he rescued years ago in a secret mission.

  
“Um, mind we speak alone for a second?” Hopper asks the young Jedi.

  
The two quietly walk away from the group and into the empty hold of a shuttle nearby.

  
“Where have you been all these years kid?” he hesitantly asks.

  
“Where were you?” she responds defensively.

  
Hopper realizes why she’s like this, “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been around, that I haven’t been in contact these past few years. It’s just that I know that I’m a black hole, and I couldn’t have you sucked it with me” he tells her.

  
“I just don’t understand why you had to leave me,” she tells him, now starting to cry.

  
“It’s just that you remind me of Sara so much, especially now that you’re a Jedi now” he replies, his regret and sadness now audible in his voice.

  
“Who’s Sara?” El asks.

  
“My daughter, she was a Jedi too” he explains.

  
“What happened to her?”

  
“She was training to be a Jedi with Luke Skywalker when Kylo Ren killed her,” he tells her.

  
It was at that moment that the two understood the pain the other had gone through. El understood why Hopper was so hesitant to become the parental-figure she needed in her life. Hopper now strongly regretting his decision not to raise her and instead of leaving her to the Republic and then the Jedi. The two hugged, both of them needing something that was years overdue.

  
The two then rejoined with the team to discuss their mission with Mike briefing everyone on their plan. Once everyone was clear on the plan, they headed into their shuttle, Hopper and his strike team in the cargo hold, and Mike and the party in the cockpit. The shuttle exited the hangar and made the jump to light speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope this chapter makes logical sense, if not I'm sorry and hopefully I can improve when I finish the next chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed what you just read. This is my first foray into writing fanfic so any comments or constructive criticisms are welcome.


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